‘There is something in this building, Mr Lucca, that is killing people.’
Lucca laughed, and threw himself carelessly into one of the big chairs out on the terrace. ‘I take it that you mean, apart from me.’
‘We know all about you, Lucca. But we’re not interested. You’re not the kind of scum we have the licence for. Or the stomach.’
He leaned forward, intent. ‘So what exactly is it that we’re talking about? A life form of some kind that can pass through walls and takes people with it, just sucks them back out through the wall, as if they had never been there?’
Toshiko felt her body charge with nervous excitement. ‘Yes. Exactly. Have you seen it?’
Lucca smiled a little. ‘I see everything.’
He had a remote control in his hand. He pressed a button and a panel in the garden lit up. Lucca had a TV in his garden, as well as in his shower.
The garden TV didn’t particularly shock Toshiko. Anyone who lived half a mile up in the sky and still needed a lawn sprinkler was going to be a little on the flash side. What shocked her was what she saw on the screen.
‘I think you missed a bit, just there,’ he said, pointing to the back of his own neck.
On screen, Toshiko was showering.
‘You pervert,’ she growled.
Lucca chuckled. ‘A little perversion, a little paranoia… I built this place as my fortress. I have a great many enemies. But up here no one can reach me. From here, if I need to, I can control the elevators, the fire doors, the air-con. Everything. And I see everything.’
He toggled the remote and the image on the screen changed: it was Owen crossing the apartment earlier that night with the towel wrapped around his waist. Lucca froze the frame. The hole in Owen’s chest was clearly visible.
‘I see everything,’ he said. ‘I just don’t pretend to understand it all.’
‘All we want to do is to stop this thing killing people. You’re in as much danger as anyone. Let us deal with it.’
Lucca looked at her for a long time, as if he were considering, or perhaps just playing games.
In the end he said, ‘No.’
And the two men that had been waiting for her outside the elevator grabbed Toshiko from behind.
SEVENTEEN
Owen was surrounded by darkness. It was complete and total, and he knew that it was Death.
He had been here before. He remembered it the way that young babies must remember the womb.
There was a strange sensation of suspension. Like floating in the densely salted water of a relaxation chamber. Except that there was little that was relaxing about Death. It was cold, and every nerve in his body was screaming with tension. Because although this was Death, and this was the end, with no afterlife, with no hope of resurrection or salvation, he knew – as all the dead knew – they were not alone here.
And, whatever it was, it would find him defenceless because he could not move, he could not run and there was nowhere to hide. The darkness may have been total but instinctively he knew that
And sooner or later it would come for him.
Just as the thing had come for him out of the wall.
And shook his shoulder.
‘Owen!’
Consciousness hit him like a hammer right between the eyes.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he gasped.
‘Owen, are you all right?’
This time it was a different voice. A woman’s voice. He found himself on the carpet in the SkyPoint apartment. Gwen and Jack were crouched over him.
Jack was smiling. ‘Thought we’d lost you again there, buddy,’ he said and shook Owen’s shoulder once more.
‘It’s difficult to tell with a corpse,’ said another voice.
Owen turned his head and saw Ianto over by the sound system. He really hoped Ianto hadn’t been going through the CD collection in case he had passed on for keeps this time.
‘Yeah, well I was waiting for someone to give me the kiss of life, wasn’t I?’ he said, looking at Gwen.
‘So what happened?’ Jack asked, taking in the apartment and throwing himself onto its oversized couch. ‘You missed your ten o’clock call-in. We got round here and found you on the floor.’
Gwen was helping Owen to his feet as his head caught up with him.
‘And where’s Tosh?’ she asked.
‘Lucca,’ Owen gasped. His memory falling back into place with the impact of a bomb. Quickly he brought them up to speed with what had happened up to Toshiko slamming the door on him.
‘Then it came out of the wall,’ he said.
Somehow it had seized the door so that he couldn’t escape, and then it had come for him. Emerging from the wall, a shapeless mass that was neither solid nor gas, or liquid. Like nothing he had ever seen before. But there had been lights within it, like stars. It had been like looking into a galaxy that came drifting towards him, enveloping him.
… That was all he could remember.
‘But it didn’t take you like it did the others,’ observed Ianto.
‘Maybe it prefers fresh meat,’ said Owen.
‘We don’t have time to work it out now,’ Gwen told them. ‘This creature – whatever it is – is going to have to wait. First we have to get Tosh back from Lucca.’
Jack leaped over the back of the couch. ‘That’s right. Come on.’
As one, they moved out into the passageway, but they hadn’t reached the elevator when a man came crashing through the stairwell doors. He was in his pyjamas, a dressing gown flapping around him. It was the beachball man from the Lloyds’ welcome party, his face was pale but his eyes were red with tears. All he could do was cry one word again and again…
‘Gillian! Gillian!’
Gwen caught him in her arms. ‘Calm down, love. Calm down. What is it? What’s happened?’
‘She’s gone,’ he cried. ‘She’s gone!’
Behind them, another door opened. It was Andrew and Simon, disturbed by the beachball man’s cries.
‘What on Earth’s going on?’ Andrew demanded.
But Simon saw his distressed neighbour. ‘Ryan? Whatever’s wrong?’
Ryan the Beachball’s eyes were huge, threatening to burst out of his head. ‘Something, it took her! Gillian! It came out of the wall!’
Andrew raised his eyebrows in disbelief and looked at his partner. ‘I never took him as one for the…’ And he mimed a spliff.
Owen turned towards them. ‘He isn’t. He’s not hallucinating. There’s something in the building and everyone in it is in danger. You were right before, Andrew, people haven’t been running out on their payments. People are getting killed. So do yourselves a favour, pack a bag and get out.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said Simon. ‘This is some sort of a wind-up.’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘It isn’t.’
Above him on the wall was the fire alarm. He pulled his Webley from its holster and used its butt to smash
